Search - Leslie Guinn, Robert Schumann, Jan DeGaetani :: Robert Schumann: Duets

An enduring classic among lieder recordings

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 02/21/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Schumann was a romantic as well as a Romantic, imbued with the last drop of Victorian sentimentality about love and tendrness as redeeming emotions. If you appreciate these qualities in Frauenliebe und Leben, whose pure innocence strikes some as cloying (but not me), Schumann's duets are cut from the same cloth. They are essentially hymns to love for the parlor. The composer lavished some of his most beautiful melodies on them, so it's a shame that duet-singing has fallen out of fashion.



Over the years this collection from 1979, featuring two renowned lieder singers, mezzo Jan De Gaetani and baritone Leslie Guinn, has been a shining example of a nearly lost art. Their voices blend almost perfectly in timbre -- one has no trouble hearing what Schmann wanted us to her, the rapturous blending of two souls. Not that his duets are passionate. There are few outbursts; rather, it's the seamless flow of melody that he was after.



Even an experienced listener is like to have heard only a handful of the most famous items, such as "Tanzlied" or "Er und Sie." There are a dozen others just as beautiful, and since Schumann provides simple but crucial accompaniments to weave his spell, it's gratifying that Gilbert Kalish, who was De Gaetani's longtime musical partner, plays with such finesse. All in all, this is a nearly perfect recital, punctuated with an occasional solo song for each singer. Now out of print and selling rather dearly at Amazon Marketplace, this is sitll an unmissable gem."